Sit back, relax, and get ready to read....
Trip Start
Sep 02, 2007
1
25
31
Trip End
Ongoing
Queenstown,
New Zealand
Tuesday, January 15, 2008
Where are we? Queenstown, and all over the south island of Nuevo Zealandia...... Weather, hot and sunny almost everyday.... (when am I gonna finally get some snow?)
I think the last blog left us before Christmas..... Christmas was a wonderful pot luck dinner, kinda yankee swap,
Christmas Crew
and a marathon of Back to the Future movies. The food was wonderful, we had diverse world influences such as Argentina, Australia, USA.... well thats about it, but there were 12 of us so we felt pretty diverse.
Random styling on his new bike
The morning started out like most normal Christmas mornings- an hour mountain bike ride followed by a swim and a beer..... and ended with most of a round of frisbee golf, champagne and rain (that actually put a dusting on the mountains... just for my white christmas!)Maia's friend Brian (Bucky for those who know him as such) arrived for the holidays- he's a skydiver from New
The best post-mountain bike activity
England who is also doing an around-the-world trip, as did a package containing homemade bits and goodies from his mom which he so kindly shared. He was with us off and on for the next month or so as he used
Catching up with Brian
our couch as home base on his adventures in the country. It is funny all these people that arrive from one country and are leaving on there way to some totally different one..... such a interesting traveling culture...Around Christmas we were working quite a bit as the people that lived elsewhere in the island took time and went and visited their families. We still got to play ultimate frisbee with our pickup crowd Wednesday nights... one of our highlights here that we
A very serious(ly drunk) frisbee team
will both miss. There are some really good kids and we are having great games weekly... followed by rounds of beer while we discuss the best scores.... New Years was an epic event. It all started at 11pm. Maia is all dolled up and ready to head out as she arranges herself one last time... We get a text from the posse of choice for the night and it looks like Maia's bar tending experience will come in hand as they bar hop around town dancing the night away.
New Years Tents!
The group is at less than full strength as some of them had chosen to haul all their booze for the night up 2,000 vertical feet in 2.3 kilometers to spend New Years in a hut overlooking Mt. Cook. For the rest of us that had to work the next day...... (retail barely ever sleeps!) we spent the night away in Queenstown. There is a liquor ban on all public areas during the holiday season, unlike the rest of the year where you can drink on the streets and in parks...... and the local rugby club sets up outhouses and sells tent sites on their rugby pitch, so frisbee was kinda clogged with all shapes and sizes of tents and other homemade
The girls from the restaurant
contraptions...... (you should have seen how many people came into the shop the next day with broken tent poles from people stumbling into them.....) So New Years was a smashing success on all fronts, I think Maia ended up coming in the back door, quite a feet because it requires hopping down a 6 foot retaining wall..... I managed to rip it up till 11pm and then enjoyed a relatively blissful sleep only interrupted by fireworks and the sounds of breaking glass on the streets outside but managed to get into work at 8:30 am on January 1st. Whose bright idea was that?!The New Year arrived relatively quietly for me, the store at 8:30 am on New years day was relatively dead..... and I managed my longest no sale streak of about 3.5 hours..... the stuff your mind will do when you figure out that this job is about to turn really short term.......
There are some perks about this job.... mostly bits and pieces around town, locals prices (50 cents off beers and 15 % off food and stuff) at bars and stuff..... free gear rental...
Why do I always pick the expensive sports?
free rides on the local ski area's chairlift and free use of monstrous downhill mtn bikes to rip up the trails with. Our shop sets up a rental/demo shop up at the downhill mtn bike park, usually manned by our buddy Stu. Whenever we make it up there (8 mile bike ride, 5 of it uphill!) or drive, he usually closes up shop and takes a couple laps with us as we get to test out the biggest bikes while all dressed in body armour and full faced helmets.....
What's not to love about heli-biking?
Maia got hooked up with the heli-bike guy and got a free heli-bike trip which consisted of a fifteen minute ride up in the middle of the mountains and a 2 1/2 hour ride down.So the perks are there.... rockclimbing with full setups at beautiful cliffs overlooking the lake with the sun setting
Setting up the ropes for the rappel down
over mountains to the west..... Sometimes the climbs require you to rappel down the cliff to the lakeside and belay from there as you take turns climbing up and jumping back into the lake, the fast way down....We are still managing to do some trekking..... Maia and I have been out to a few of the beautiful huts in the area.
Rappelling down into the water with a beer
One in particular consisted of a walk down a glacier carved valley as it winds its way up toward Mt. Aspiring and then as the valley closes in we took a left away from the big peak and walked straight up to a little hut with epic views looking over the mtn as the sun sets over it... Got a little snow that night too! Then my parents arrived, they are leaving today actually. They have had a wonderful time, having experienced everything from the beauty of Milford sound to a coworkers hen party....
Bachelorette party... guess who's the bride?
which consisted of a large posse of extremely drunk 20-something girls running around trying to get the bride to be to kiss as many men as they could..... After a week of traveling around with them, Maia's friend Dan arrived for a whirlwind 9 day tour of New Zealand.....
Now to put some guilt trips into it..... Here is where we hope to have some guest blog entries......
Well, while we wait for Dan to suck it up and write an entry, I'll (Maia here by the way) try and summarize his epic vacation.
weekly bouldering session
Dan showed up and since he claimed to not be that tired, we threw him right in the fire. A quick tour around the town, followed by a round of frisbee, then a two hour bouldering session, followed by another one of our improptu pot-luck barbeque dinners. Keep in mind Dan landed at 2pm, so this really was a full day.
Dan made it to the top!
I had to work for Dan's first two days, so we hung around town and spend the afternoons hiking and mountain biking (ask Dan about that one... the bike shop's reaction to Dan's bike after he used it was something along the lines of 'WOW, we've never seen a wheel bent *that* bad before). It's amazing what a case of beer can do to smooth things over, and the bike guys quickly forgot about Dan's crash while they enjoyed frosty Stellas on his behalf. After that I threw a 25lbs backpack on Dan and we went for the first of a few loong hikes. We started easy, with a ten mile hike through beautiful forests and lakes to arrive at Welcome Flatts Hut... an unbelieveably situated hut in the forest just minutes away from natural hot springs.
One of the many awesome hikes around here
I pulled out the bottle of wine I'd been carrying and we spent the night in the hot springs with unbelieveable views of snow-capped mountains. We woke up early the next morning and retraced our steps back to civilization, where we managed to hitch hike back over to the nearest town
king of the rock
once we reached the road and meet up with Random and his parents. The town itself was nothing special but we managed to find the one bar and all of a sudden it seemed great. The reason we had decided to meet up there, though, is that the town is just a few kilometers away from a massive receeding glacier.
Maia hiding in the glacier
As you can imagine, we spent the next day crossing the "DO NOT CROSS - DANGEROUS" signs and hiking all over and around the glacier. It was all for the pictures ;)A long drive back to Queenstown later, Dan, Random, and I prepared our backpacks for the next long hike... this was a grueling 20
randomonium
mile hike that the average person does in three days... but given our time frame and the fact that we wanted Dan to see everything, we decided we'd do it in a day and have Random's parents meet us on the other side. Poor Dan... he's going to need a vacation from this vacation. But the hike was incredible and we flew through it with flying colors.
Getting to that torck was coooold!!
We could probably write an entire blog entry on this hike and definitely fill it up with pictures, but we'll just throw a few pictures on and let you imagine the rest... or better yet, entice you to come visit and see it for yourself. It worked out perfectly because the hike started near Queenstown (home, for those of you that have a hard time following all of this) and ended just near Milford Sound... an unbelieveable fiordland carved out by the glacier.
Dan needs a vacation from his vacation
Random's parents picked us up from that end and the five us headed over to the sound for a private cruise around. No, it wasn't actually meant to be private, but seeing as we were the only ones on at that time, we felt pretty regal. I know we always say the pictures don't do it justice, but really, here the pictures don't do it justice.
just another waterfall
Some of these cliff faces reached unbelievable altitudes of 4000 ft above the water... totally straight up and sho wknows how deep they went. Our cruise felt like five minutes but they assured us that we had spent two full hours riding around the fiords. There were tons of sea lions and we even got to see a penguin!Doesn't really feel like we're still within Dan's 9-day trip, huh? Now you see what we mean by not being able to
Random looking ridiculous
summarize everything we've been doing in the past 45 days... But after the Milford Sound we headed back home and Dan decided to cram one more thin gin- he went river surfing the next day while Random and I worked. Perfect timing though, cause Dan returend from his river surfing trip just about the time I was getting off from work... we went home, filled a three-liter juice bottle with vodka and whatever bits of juice were left over, and went into town to help Random
dan's last night in town
finish off his shift (and the vodka)... after which we wrangled Tiffany, another coworker, to join us in saying bye to Dan properly.Somehow Dan woke up in time, packed, though I think he might have left his jeans here... and made it to the airport just in time to get back to work on Wednesday morning.
Okay, now we'll wait for Dan to comment, and then back to Random....
Before I talk about my trip, I want to give a shout out to avid blog
readers Ed Antoian and Gabby Josebachvili. This blog would be nothing
without the readers. Now that we have that out of the way, I'll try to
fill in a few important details, even though Maia basically told you
everything I did.
First of all, the only thing I ate on the entire trip was salami with
cheese, hamburgers, and peanut butter on English muffins. I couldn't be
happier about that. Second of all, I'd say my entire experience in NZ
was similar to that of a fat kid in gym class. While I was struggling
to climb up easy boulders, her friends were off climbing rocks upside
down by putting their feet near their ears and holding on with 2
fingers at a time, all after downing a few beers. Also, at the end of
the ten mile hike, Maia decided to run ahead to finish the trail, then
run back into the forest to tell me that I was almost done, while I was
wondering if I'd ever be able to walk again. That made me feel great.
Finally I think we can all agree that the most important development
during the past two weeks was the Giants win over the Packers. Coming
home to the Giants in the Super Bowl was really the icing on the cake.
Special
thanks go out to the Dudleys for helping us get around and taking us
out for dinner and a cruise. It was great meeting you guys and I really
appreciate it.
Dan
Okay, Random back. The last few days have been crazy as Dan wraps up his trip. My parents are packing last bits of stuff and bringing home stuff for me and presents for Catherine!!!!!
As some of you may know, I am coming home February 5th as my cash flow is insufficient to continue
traveling, while Maia will stay here in New Zealand for a month or so, then off to Argentina, Australia, Japan, etc.....
Have a great day.... I can't wait to see everyone.... and get some skiing in! Looking forward to Sugarbush guys!
Maia here, for those of you who are still reading this far. I think that for the first time I can actually say Random has *not* covered everything, but he did a pretty great job considering we've now gone almost two full months without a blog entry.
Group shot in front of the glacier
Anyways, I'm just chiming in for a look at what's in store for the blog, assuming I motivate and actually start to write in it after this little hiatus. Random leaves here pretty soon and after I'll that I'll be moving in with some friends for the remainder of my time here. I'm going to Argentina Feb 14th to visit the family for ten ways, after which I'll come back here and travel with our mountain biking buddy Stu for a week or two, semi-training for my marathon (I didn't mention that yet, huh?). Yeah, I signed up for an off-road, mostly uphill, river-crossing marathon... this was definitely on a whim seeing as I only had about 7 weeks to train and I'm not really a huge runner to begin with.
and another waterfall
So we'll travel, I'll run, then run the marathon, after which I'll head up to Japan and China and take the train from Beijing to St. Petersburg... Phew... and yeah, then eventually make my way home :) So if you know anyone in any of those regions send me their contact info, I'd love to see a semi-familar face!Enjoy the day and see you guys soon!
